Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; Compressed Natural Gas Fuel Containers

On December 3, 1998, we published a final rule that deleted the material and manufacturing process requirements in the Federal motor vehicle safety standard on compressed natural gas fuel containers. As part of this final rule, we amended the provisions relating to the hydrostatic burst test to remove any reference to the deleted requirements. Those amendments also inadvertently amended the hydrostatic burst test requirement to require the stress ratio to be applied as a pressure ratio. This document corrects that error, and thereby moots requests related to that amendment in several petitions for reconsideration of the 1998 final rule. This document also denies the request in a petition for reconsideration from Lincoln Composites, Inc., to link the deletion of the material and manufacturing process requirements with the addition of new performance tests to the standard.